Confusing Difficulty to Breath

Abstract

Hereby presented is a case of a rather unusual community-acquired Mycoplasma pneumonia (M. pneumonia) infection in a 47 year-old woman with pneumonia associated with confusion, sleepiness and disorganisation before her hospital admission. Later on, she developed a clinically significant cold agglutinin hemolytic anemia which required a blood transfusion support. Other extrapulmonary symptoms should be looked for in patients infected with M. pneumonia. The central nervous system (CNS) involvement being the most common one, other systems such as cardiac, renal, skin, gastro-intestinal and rheumatologic could be affected. M. pneumonia should be searched for by serology, if available in your hospital, as it is one of the common atypical pneumonia that needs to be kept in mind by all primary care physicians. Recognizing this infectious agent is crucial for everybody as the patient needs to be isolated as it is an airborne transmission and they need to stay in a warm room to prevent or reduce the associated hemolytic anemia complication. It also typically responds to macrolides and fluoroquinolones specifically but doxycycline can also be used in the treatment arsenal.




J Med Cases. 2013;4(7):471-473
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4021/jmc1233w